Seven Samurai Age Appropiateness (1 Viewer)

[Al.Anderson]

My 11 year old is in a club that's going to see The Seven Samurai. (It's a mixed age group club and the instructor is leaving it up to the parents) It's not rated; and I've never seen it and won't have time before the showing. Can anyone help me out - is there anything in this movie that I should be aware of?

(To scope it, I wouldn't have a problem with The Magnificant Seven. Midling violence is okay (LOTR); over the top gore, cruelity, or horror is not.) Thanks!

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Toshiro Mifune yells a lot, and there's violence, none of it muted. But I don't remember it being that bloody though. There is blood however though in realistic quantities. And yes, the consequences of violence are shown.

 

[Haggai]

In the version I've seen a couple of times in recent years, in theaters, the subtitles occasionally have some very strong language. Maybe two or three times at the most, during a 3 1/2-hour long movie, but that's something to be aware of too. Nothing gory, but yes, lots of intense fighting scenes with no-punches-pulled violence.

It's one of the all-time great movies, but Al, I hope your 11-year-old is a more precocious film-watcher than I was at that age. I would not have been too keen on seeing a 3 1/2-hour long black and white movie with subtitles. But, don't let that stop you, I guess it's never too early in life for some Kurosawa!

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Listen to Haggai, he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Brook K]

The level of violence in Seven Samurai is no "worse" than that of LOTR. It basically concerns 40 or so bandits attacking a village of farmers defended by the seven samurai, so the violence is primarily swordplay and archery with the bandits possessing a few muskets as well.

Nothing close to the giant CG battles of LOTR, but perhaps a more immediate, realistic depiction of violence.

As Haggai points out, the new subtitle translation appearing on prints does include a few instances of cursing, if you find that objectionable for your son. (though assuming he goes to school and has friends he's probably been familiar with those words for some time. )

 

[JonBoriss]

For this day and age the violence is pretty PG rated I think.

 

[Alex Prosak]

I don't think there is anything too disturbing to see. But then I was watching Lone Wolf and Cub when I was 7. If my 9 year old could sit through 3 1/2 hours of black and white and subtitles, I'd let him watch it. It really is PG based on today's standards.

 

[Haggai]

Alex, were you raised by Bill from Kill Bill?

 

[Al.Anderson]

Thanks! From what everyone has said it seems like it should be okay. I'll be there and watching too, so I can pull him out if I decide it's too much; but I didn't want to tell him it was a go and then have that happen.



He's pretty good about that. He'll sit through anything I tell him is "clasic". (I'm waiting for him to figure out that my definition of clasic is not universal ...) He liked Dr. Stangelove and A Night at the Races. He wasn't too keen on A Bridge Over the River Kwai and Casablana. (I knew Casablanca was going to be a stretch; but on the plus side, he enjoyed Carrotblanca much more after seeing the "original".)

I can't think of any subtitled films we've watched; so that could be interesting.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

That's funny, I loved Kwai and Casablanca at age 10-11. In the opening scene of Kwai, I was mesmerized by the British soldiers who kept marching in step in order to defy the Japanese warden and the "Play Le Marsailles" scene in Casablanca still moves me with it's ultimate defiance in the face of tyranny. I have expressed my love for "On The Waterfront" many times, with the theme of the underdog defying the establishment ringing true with me the first time my dad sat me down and made me watch it at age 10. Come to think of it, I was a pretty defiant kid myself, so I guess I'm seeing a pattern here.

Strangelove took me a while to understand, satire was lost on me until I was older and I just now have learned to laugh out loud at the Marx Brothers. I guess all kids are different, but kudos to yours for showing an interest in films that 99.999% of his peers have never heard of, never mind seen. Also kudos to you for exposing him to that. My father used to sit me down and make me watch classics, just so he could pass his love and knowledge of them on to me. It is one of the things that I will carry forever and I'm honored to take over the family role of "classic movie question go to guy" that my father always held before his passing. You are doing good work my man!

Edit: A good exercise for your son would be to watch "Seven Samurai", "The Magnificent Seven" and "A Bug's Life" in a row. Comparing these three would be interesting from a kid's point of view, especially since one of them is a kid's film (although not a remake of SS and TMS, it is close enough in theme to be called homage, IMHO).

 

[Lew Crippen]

I might point out one thing about the violence in The Seven Samurai: it is true that it is no more (and actually less so) violent than The Lord of the Rings for example, but Kurosawa is an artist of the highest order—and I think that the impact of the violence is stronger than most of the movies mentioned.

As for eleven year olds watching 3 ½ hour, subtitled movies—most would give it a miss, but your son may well be very different.

 

[Greg_R]

If his son can handle the Boromir death scene in FOTR then he'll have no problem with the violence in The Seven Samuri. JMHO...

 

[Sean Campbell]

And if he likes it then he'll probably love The Hidden Fortress, which is probably Kurosawa's most kid friendly movie ( not actually for kids, but a nice adventure movie that the whole family can enjoy ).

 

[doug zdanivsky]

One word of caution.. It's LONG!!

But in a good way..

Sure beats Magnificent Seven..

 

[Alex Prosak]

No...just The Bride.

 

[Al.Anderson]

More thanks. I wouldn't have made the connection to A Bugs Life, so that'll be an interesting sequence of movies. Plus, although I've a movie buff, I'm a mainstream buff, so I never knew of The Hidden Fortress - I'll be adding that onto the ol' Netflix queue.

 

[Alex Prosak]

Al, a couple of other movies you might want to add to your queue are Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Yojimbo is the movie upon which Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars is based upon and Sanjuro is its sequel. Very different movies but both are excellent.

 

[Lew Crippen]

You (and your son) might like to know that The Hidden Fortress was one of many inspiriations behind George Lucas’ Star Wars.

 

[Chad A Wright]

Sounds like your son is really advanced in his film watching habits. The 11-year-olds I teach at church could never ever make it through anything considered to be a classic.

I can't wait to see how my 4 year old is when he is around 11. He already watches a bunch of movies with me that most kids his age wouldn't sit through. Some friends of ours took him to see SpongeBob SquarePants movie. I asked him if he had a good time, and he said, yes with his friends, but SpongeBob was stupid.

That's my boy.